“AKIRA – A.D. 2019 ‘Who Can Survive?’ Neo‑Tokyo Explosion Calendar,” Original Japanese Double‑Sided B1 Poster, Printed in 1988, Size 73 × 103 cm – Excellent Condition AA17

A spectacular and unusually intellectual piece of Akira ephemera: an original Japanese B1 poster conceived as a full‑year calendar for A.D. 2019—the year in which the film is set—paired on the verso with dense production‑documentation under the headings AKIRA FACTORY and DIALOGUE OF AKIRA THE MOVIE. The imagery and text on the reverse echo sections of Kodansha’s 1988 mook Poster & Graphic AKIRA, published to coincide with the film’s original theatrical release, which likewise includes layouts titled “Dialogue of Akira the Movie” and “Akira Factory.” Taken together with the period printing technology and 1980s studio photography, this places the poster convincingly around 1988, the year Akira first premiered in Japanese cinemas.

Printed in 1988 to the standard Japanese B1 format (approx. 73 × 103 cm), this is a true double‑sided offset lithograph: one face a prophetic calendar‑poster for Neo‑Tokyo’s doomed 2019, the other a rich collage of behind‑the‑scenes photographs, script and graphics celebrating the film’s production.

Recto: A.D. 2019 – Neo‑Tokyo explosion calendar
The principal side presents the entire year at a glance, the months running in narrow, elongated numerals across a dark, storm‑cloud sky. The typography is razor‑thin and futuristic, weekdays picked out in bone‑white, Sundays in blood‑red, under the heading AD 2019 in the same searing red at the top.

Beneath the calendar grid, the design erupts into one of the most striking apocalypse images in Akira iconography: a vast black dome—part eclipse, part singularity—sits where Tokyo once stood, ringed by a halo of radioactive light that blasts outward into vertiginous canyons of collapsing skyscrapers rendered in toxic greens and aquas. At the base of the sphere, in small, spidery red letters, the question that anchors the whole composition:

WHO CAN SURVIVE?

The image reads as both the 1988 destruction of old Tokyo and the later implosion of Neo‑Tokyo, a visual condensation of the film’s two cataclysms. Hung on a wall, this side functions as a monumental piece of art in its own right; the calendar is fully functional but almost secondary to the impact of the painting.

Conceptually, the piece is elegant and sly. Produced at the moment of the film’s birth, it projects viewers thirty‑one years into the future, offering a complete calendar for the then‑distant year 2019—the “present” of Akira’s story—while asking, in that future landscape, who will be left alive. It’s as much a time capsule and thought experiment as it is a promotional item.

Verso: “AKIRA FACTORY” & “DIALOGUE OF AKIRA THE MOVIE”
The reverse is a treasure‑trove for devotees of the film’s production history. The top half, headed in neon‑tube lettering AKIRA FACTORY, is a dense, playful photo‑collage:

• colour photographs of printing presses rolling out the classic B1 theatrical posters and staff proudly holding fresh sheets;

• shots of the art department, monitors and desks strewn with layouts and cels;

• merchandising ephemera—badges, flyers, manga volumes, Young Magazine covers—floating across a matrix of the city’s circuit‑board nightscape;

• little visual jokes in pure late‑80s style, including roller‑skating figures and cut‑up fragments of the film’s iconic red bike.

It is effectively a mini‑photo‑essay on how the myth of Akira was manufactured: the industrial process behind the aura. Very similar material is documented under the same title in Kodansha’s Poster & Graphic AKIRA, which compiles advertising‑poster production scenes and product photography from the 1988 campaign.

The lower half flips modes entirely. On a lavender ground headed DIALOGUE OF AKIRA THE MOVIE, the sheet is packed with tiny Japanese text—essentially a wall‑sized typesetting of the film’s dialogue, a script one can literally pin to the wall. Over this field of words floats a fine white technical drawing of a spherical mechanical construct, echoing the film’s obsession with secret hardware and containment technology. This section corresponds to the “Dialogue of Akira the Movie (complete script)” material listed in the same 1988 Kodansha publication.

Viewed as a whole, the verso transforms the poster into a compact production archive: calendar on one side, screenplay and factory‑floor on the other.

Dating and context
Akira debuted in Japanese cinemas in July 1988 and rapidly assumed landmark status in animation and global science‑fiction culture. The combination on this sheet of a 2019 calendar with layouts titled “Akira Factory” and “Dialogue of Akira the Movie,” both documented in Kodansha’s 1988 Poster & Graphic AKIRA, strongly suggests that this double‑sided B1 was produced around the time of the film’s initial release, either as a special‑issue calendar / large fold‑out supplement for the Kodansha campaign.

Condition
Excellent, especially for an over‑37‑year‑old double‑sided sheet. Colours on both faces remain rich and saturated, with the greens and blues of the explosion scene particularly vivid. Paper is clean and supple, with only light handling and a few very minor surface impressions visible under raking light, plus the customary small edge touches from careful storage—no significant tears, no paper loss, no writing or staining. The poster has not been linen‑backed or restored and displays to outstanding effect on either side.

Additional information
Original Japanese printing, B1 format (approx. 73 × 103 cm), offset lithograph, double‑sided; not a reproduction or modern reprint.
A Certificate of Authenticity will be included.

For collectors of Akira, late‑Shōwa graphic design, anime production history, or apocalyptic city imagery, this is an unusually concept‑driven and visually commanding piece—equally compelling as a darkly beautiful wall‑calendar of Neo‑Tokyo’s doomed 2019 and as a dense, almost archival record of how one of the most influential animated films of the 20th century came into being.